U. of Kentucky Men's Basketball Program Suffers a One-Two Punch

Lawsuits and NCAA investigations rank close to the top of an athletic director’s list of potential headaches. Mitch Barnhart, the University of Kentucky’s athletic director, has been hit with both in the past 24 hours.

The head coach Mr. Barnhart fired in late March after two seasons, Billy Gillispie, sued the University of Kentucky Athletic Association in federal court yesterday. In a 24-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Dallas, Mr. Gillispie says the association, acting in a “make-believe world,” has failed to honor the terms of the written agreement under which he was hired by withholding payments of $1.5-million a year for four of the five years remaining on his seven-year contract.

In a statement, Kentucky officials said yesterday that Mr. Gillispie’s lawsuit was “surprising” because the university had still been negotiating a “good faith” separation with the former coach.

Then, this afternoon, the university announced that it filed a separate lawsuit earlier today in Kentucky’s Franklin Circuit Court. A lawyer for the university, Stephen L. Barker, said in a statement that the “memorandum of understanding” under which Mr. Gillispie was hired in 2007 was not an enforceable contract and therefore did not require the university to give a reason for terminating him. Mr. Gillispie repeatedly rejected the university’s attempts to reach “a definitive long-term employment contract,” Mr. Barker said.

Meanwhile, a Memphis newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, reported that the team coached by the man Mr. Barnhart hired to replace Mr. Gillispie, John Calipari’s University of Memphis, is under preliminary investigation by the NCAA for possible rules violations. Kentucky hired Mr. Calipari under a $32-million, eight-year contract on March 31, just days after dismissing Mr. Gillispie.

In a statement released yesterday, Kentucky officials said Mr. Calipari had received a letter from the NCAA stating that he is not at risk of being charged with any violations in the case. The coach “was forthcoming with the University of Kentucky during the hiring process about any issues under investigation at the University of Memphis at that time,” the statement read.

But if the board room and the courtroom bring only stress to Mr. Barnhart and other administrators in Lexington, Ky., some solace might be be found on the hardwood next season. In addition to bringing along at least two of the top players who had committed to play for him at Memphis, Mr. Calipari has held on to many of the top recruits who committed to the Wildcats before his arrival. The result? A recruiting class that experts say could be the most talented in recent memory. —Libby Sander